Cape Town - Apple has discontinued the iPad 2 and the company has, through its local distributor, announced the pricing for the replacement tablet.

Core Group announced on Monday the pricing for the iPad with Retina display that will replace the iPad 2 in SA.

The base 16GB model starts at R5 299, and the 3G version is R6 999.

A Gartner survey revealed that tablet market is the growth engine for the mobile device industry. The sector grew by 68% in 2013 and the iPad leads with a market share of 36%, though down from 52.8% in 2012.

"Apple's tablets remain strong in the higher end of the market and, Apple's approach will continue to force vendors to compete with full ecosystem offerings, even in the smaller-screen market as the iPad mini sees a greater share," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner.

Education

Tablets have also emerged as an ideal technology to deliver educational content.

Energy firm Engen has rolled out a staff training programme using the iPad.

The Engen Learn App Recap delivers employee life skills training to cashiers and fuel pump attendants and is designed to assist staff with low literacy levels.

The programme had challenges given the wide dispersion of staff at 1 500 fuel stations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Being able to reach that number of brand representatives in an effective manner or any kind of sustainable manner has, to this point, been impossible but with the advent of iPads in South Africa, we saw an incredible opportunity," said Craig Reid, CEO Fuel, developers of the Engen Learn app.

The company tested a variety of competitor products but Reid said that the iPad best served their needs.

"We went through an incredibly rigorous testing process, where we tested more than 12 devices and the only one that survived in the context we needed to use it in was the iPad."

24.com publishes all comments posted on articles provided that they adhere to our Comments Policy. Should you wish to report a comment for editorial review, please do so by clicking the 'Report Comment' button to the right of each comment.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

Saving your profile

Settings

News24 allows you to edit the display of certain components based on a location.
If you wish to personalise the page based on your preferences, please select a
location for each component and click "Submit" in order for the changes to
take affect.

Your Location*

Weather*

Always remember my setting

Saving your settings

Facebook Sign-In

Hi News addict,

Join the News24 Community to be involved in breaking the news.

Log in with Facebook to comment and personalise news, weather and listings.